


if that's all we get

by bookhobbit



Series: 2019 Season of Kink Bingo [1]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season of Kink 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 21:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19281826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: Rincewind rests, for a moment.(For 2019 Season of Kink, prompt: Hurt/Comfort)





	if that's all we get

**Author's Note:**

> Slight AU of Interesting Times where Rincewind stays the night before getting yeeted into Fantasy Australia.
> 
> Wrote some ficlet scribblings along these lines MANY years ago and have been wanting to revisit it, so this was a good opportunity. I confess to have letting canon supply much of the hurt. I'm not...sure if it's coherent, but, whatever, here you go. It's just a bunch of emotions dumped into Words.

**** "I like the hair," says Twoflower. "Though it has more grey in it than I remember."

"It's not on purpose," says Rincewind. He can't shake the feeling that the palace is about to fall down around him as he steps inside another room. Something bad was supposed to happen, surely.

"Oh, I know. Old age."

"The length, I meant," says Rincewind, "And who's old? You're older than me."

"But not as grey, and anyway a year and a half hardly counts," says Twoflower cheerfully. "If it's not on purpose, what is it on?"

"Being stuck in the Dungeon Dimensions and then a desert island for an unspecified amount of time. No barbers."

"Well, I think it suits you." Twoflower reaches out to touch Rincewind's hair, and Rincewind keeps himself from flinching. "Even the grey. Although it seems to have come on fast."

"I have had," says Rincewind with feeling, "a  _ very _ stressful life. Anyway, at least I still have all my hair." He looks pointedly at Twflower's bald spot.

Twoflower smiles, and claps him on the back. "Well, have a break, then. What first for the conquering hero?"

"Don't call me that. It's bad luck." Rincewind turns around just to see if there's any ravening elephants careening up behind him. 

"Conquering wizard?"

"Just...wizard," says Rincewind, rubbing his eyes. "That's all I've ever wanted to be."

"I know," says Twoflower kindly. "Come on. Dinner?"

"Um, bath," says Rincewind, looking down at his mud-soaked robes. "Do you have any clothes I can borrow?"

As it turns out, the Imperial Public Bath has a variety of pajama-like garments stacked neatly alongside the towels. Rincewind looks around some more. "Are you sure we're allowed to use this?"

"Emperor Cohen said you were supposed to be taken care of."

"I doubt those were the words he used."

"No, I think he said 'give the bugger a good dinner and a good night's sleep cos that trick with the big clay men was a damn fine one.' Besides the public baths are for all the palace residents, which we, at the moment, are."

"I don't suppose Cohen's going to want to use it at the moment," mutters Rincewind, stripping himself of sodden robes. 

Twoflower makes a diplomatic kind of noise. "Anyway, the Emperor has his own private baths."

Rincewind glances back at Twoflower and down at himself, in very muddy combinations. Without being asked, Twoflower looks away. Rincewind strips quickly and submerges himself in the water up to his neck, closes his eyes while Twoflower does the same.

"It's a bit silly, really," says Twoflower, splashing a little in the hot water.

"What?"

"I mean, I've seen you naked before, and vice-versa."

Rincewind turns red and ducks his head under the water, on the pretense of wetting it for washing. "That was a long time ago," he says after he emerges, scrubbing industriously with a bar of soap at his long, muddy, and  _ yes _ , all right,  _ greying _ hair. Rincewind feels he's earned the grey, anyhow. What with one thing and another.

Twoflower shakes his head and wades over to hand Rincewind a sponge. "Not that long ago."

"Back when you were married," says Rincewind, with some bitterness.

"I did tell you."

"You didn't!"

"I swear I did."

"Were we speaking Trob? Was this before you'd taught me Agatean and I taught you Morporkian?"

"Yes, I think so. Yes, indeed, I think right after I hired you."

"Ah," says Rincewind moodily. "Probably thought you were talking about hippos."

"What?"

Rincewind sighs. "Never mind. Let's just...move on, all right?"

"It wasn't a secret," Twoflower says, ignoring this. "We talked about the possibility beforehand. And afterwards, she knew about you. I told her when we got back. She said she thought you must have been a very honorable man to guide me so well."

" _ Ha _ ."

"I know you don't think much of yourself," says Twoflower, touching Rincewind's arm, "But not everyone agrees with you, you know."

Rincewind draws back and begins furiously scrubbing his hair again. It probably needs it, anyway. After all that. The mud, and everything. He wants to scrub where Twoflower touched him, too, get the itch away, the longing for more. His chest feels tight.

Twoflower, who started cleaner in the first place, heaves himself out of the bath to wrap himself in a towel. Rincewind doesn't look away fast enough and gets a glimpse of him: thinner than he should be, with new scars on his arms. The curl of worry unfolds before he can remind himself that Twoflower is none of his business anymore. 

He soaks until his fingers start to shrivel. Twoflower's dressed by now, sitting in a chair with his eyes closed. Probably asleep. Rincewind grabs the towel Twoflower has placed beside the bath and scrambles up, wraps it around himself before he can wake up.

He wonders if he could just sneak out now. Put on some clothes and find a bag for his robes, make his way through the country until he comes to the coast, and sail back to Ankh-Morpork somehow. With what money, he asks himself? And what food?

He's not sure why he wants to run so badly, except that he's positive something really, really, really awful is following on behind him.

Twoflower startles awake as Rincewind wrestles trousers on beneath his towel. "Oh, you're finished."

Rincewind, now half-dressed, puts the towel down. "I think I lost three layers of skin in there."

Twoflower starts to say something, then stops as Rincewind turns to grab his shirt. When Rincewind pulls the shirt down over his head and looks back at Twoflower, he's frowning.

"What?" says Rincewind, spinning around. "Is there a spider?"

"Rincewind. Where did those scars come from?"

"Which ones?"

"Yes, that's sort of what I was reacting to."

"Well, you're one to talk," says Rincewind, gesturing to Twoflower's wrists.

"That's only from prison," says Twoflower. "Manacles, you know. Nothing to worry about."

"Nothing to--"

"Perhaps we should have some food?"

Rincewind stomach growls before he can think to pursue other topics of conversation. All right, then, Twoflower wins this round.

Dinner is some of Cohen's Lumps Of Meat. "It makes one quite nostalgic for Ankh-Morpork," says Twoflower.

"Everything makes me nostalgic for Ankh-Morpork right now. D'you know, I hadn't been back for more than a day before they sent me out here?" says Rincewind, through a mouthful of pork.

"Sent you for what?"

"This, I suppose. They wanted the Great Wizzard. Ha." Rincewind takes a moody bite of beef. "They were going to hang me off the pier for being a fake wizard.  _ Me. _ "

"Well, you've shown them," says Twoflower.

"Nah. I never do anything good where anyone can  _ see  _ it. I mean, anyone important. Other wizards, you know."

"Mark of a true hero," says Twoflower, rising as they finish their dinner. "You still do good deeds when no-one is around to see them. Shall I show you to your room?"

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you I'm not a hero. I don't think it counts when you usually set out to run as far away as possible and end up entangled in danger anyway."

"I don't think it matters to the actual people you're saving, you know. I think to them it's very much all the same."

"What people?"

"Well, for instance, like me. I'd be dead several times over if it wasn't for you." 

"Yeah, but it wasn't on purpose."

"Yes," says Twoflower patiently, "But I'm alive and indeed out of prison, which is very nice."

"But that doesn't make me a hero. I wasn't thinking hero thoughts."

"Rincewind," says Twoflower in what sounds like mild exasperation, "What do you think heroes  _ do _ ?"

They've arrived at a door marked 88. "This is mine, isn't it."

"How did you know?"

"I just got this amazing flash of insight," sighs Rincewind. It's not as though his luck can get any  _ worse _ ...no, that's a dangerous thought, never think that.

"Well," says Twoflower brightly. "Here you are, then."

Rincewind feels the storm, the awful thing he knows is behind him, coming to a head. With a feeling of inevitability, he says "Come in?"

There is nowhere to sit except the bed. Of course there isn't. 

"You never answered my question," says Twoflower, perching beside him. "What is it you think heroes do?"

"Say to themselves: by Hoki, someone has got to save the world and no mistake, it had better be me."

Twoflower gives a diplomatic pause. "That doesn't seem  _ terribly  _ likely." 

"Anyway, they don't go around thinking oh gods this looks like the safest exit route, oh no I've accidentally saved someone, this wasn't a good exit after all."

"I don't really believe you when you say things like that. I think you're a lot braver and more well-intentioned than you're willing to admit."

"Never underestimate the depths of my incompetence and cowardice," says Rincewind firmly.

Twoflower reaches behind Rincewind -- slowly and visibly -- and taps the middle of his back. "And that's how you got these? Mistaking exits?"

"Yes," says Rincewind. He hesitates, remembering Coin. "...sometimes quite badly, mind you."

Twoflower sighs and lets his hand rest more firmly on the small of Rincewind's back. Rincewind closes his eyes and shivers. The terrible thing must be close, close, close....

Twoflower's hand runs gently up Rincewind's spine, to his neck, up to his head. He runs his fingers through Rincewind's hair, trails his fingers along the scalp.

Rincewind squeezes his eyes tighter. Don't react, don't react, don't react. If you pretend you're not enjoying this maybe the universe won't take it away from you.

"Rincewind?" says Twoflower, hesitating.

"Don't...stop," says Rincewind.

Twoflower's other hand comes into play. He traces his them both along Rincewind's back, now massaging and now just gently stroking like he's handling a skittish cat. Rincewind half-twists to give him better access, and turns his face away. Pretend it's all a dream. 

"You could lay your head in my lap," says Twoflower, "if you liked."

Rincewind lets himself collapse slowly sideways, trying to make the motion seem unintentional. Oh no, he thinks very loudly, I happen to have fallen and my head just happens to have landed here. Nothing to do with me at all. He opens his eyes which are strangely blurry. That would have absolutely nothing to do with the water in them. Must be something he's allergic to.

"There you go," murmurs Twoflower and pets Rincewind's hair.

Rincewind blinks. Before he can think about it, he reaches out and takes Twoflower's wrists, and kisses the insides of them, right where the manacles have left cruel-looking furrows in the skin.  _ This is not my responsibility anymore,  _ he tells himself,  _ no one's going to have me executed for not keeping him safe-- _

And he kisses the marks again. As intensely irritating as Twoflower is, a just universe shouldn't do this to him. His inexplicable belief in the world as a good and kind place shouldn't be shattered, it's the only thing that makes any part of the world, anywhere, be good and kind.

"Are you all right?" says Twoflower.

"I'm just tired," says Rincewind. "That's all it is. I'm very tired."

"Should I leave?"

Rincewind doesn't let go of Twoflower's wrists.

"Ah,"  says Twoflower.

Rincewind closes his eyes and lets thumbs trail the marks. Feeling the grooves there, pressed permanently in. He can feel his own breathing slow. His chest feels tight with fear and -- something, anyhow.

Twoflower twists a strand of his hair gently around his fingers, runs them through the mass of it. It is, Rincewind knows, thin and lank and probably full of split ends, whatever those are, Conina had never made it fully clear. But Twoflower doesn't seem to care. He's petting Rincewind with an absentminded and lavish affection, as if who he is doesn't matter at all.

No, worse than that, Rincewind thinks. As if who he is  _ does  _ matter.

Without opening his eyes, he twines his fingers with Twoflower's, and Twoflower squeezes.

Twoflower's fingers trail down Rincewind's neck and towards his back. "Can I?" he asks.

Rincewind tries to shrug but is thwarted by his position. He shifts himself, sitting up, back to Towflower. "Um, okay," he says.

Twoflower rucks up the shirt a little and traces what Rincewind knows is a raised strip of flesh near the back. "Now, this one, that's from the bull, isn't it?"

"No thanks to you."

"I'm very sorry. What about this one?"

A long ridge of flesh all the way up his spine. The memory of that still hurts; he fights down the flash of panic that comes up, thinking of it. "Got that in the Dungeon Dimensions. A lot of the others, too. Long story."

"Did you do something brave again?" says Twoflower.

"I did something extremely stupid." Rincewind stops, remembering Coin's face. "It was desperate, anyway. Not brave."

"You always say that," says Twoflower affectionately. "What's this one?" His fingers trace up near Rincewind's shoulder.

"Arrow wound. Mistaken identity or something I think. There was a forest."

"Another long story?"

"It's all been...one continuous long story." Rincewind sighs.

"I'm glad it landed here. For a while, anyway."

Rincewind feels the shadow, the cloud over his shoulder, waiting to burst. He blinks back something hot in his eyes. "You know I can't stay, right?"

"The emperor did promise you a university, you know." Twoflower's hand tightens a little against his skin. Rincewind feels a shiver creep up his stomach, something sad and desperate and long-buried.

"I know, but it won't be allowed, and I can't...I can't. This isn't home."  _ And you left me, last time, and isn't this only just fair? _ But he's too tired to say it, and he doesn't want Twoflower to get that hurt look he sometimes has. He feels exhausted of hurt.

He thinks Twoflower might understand. And maybe, Rincewind thinks, maybe if this is only temporary, maybe he can have it.

The soft press of Twoflower's lips against the back of his neck. Rincewind squeezes his eyes shut really tight, hoping to make the world go away, hoping to be safe. 

They flop down on the bed, undignified, and wind up facing each other. And here, coming, is the moment Rincewind's been waiting for all night, that has been tense under his skin since he saw Twoflower again. The moment he hasn't been sure he'll be allowed.

Twoflower leans forward and kisses him.

And Rincewind, tired and scared and desperate for this not to be snatched away, lets him.

He's had enough of hurting. For just one night he wants  _ this _ .


End file.
